Bishop’s Appeal sends funding to Gaza hospital

Wednesday January 7th 2009

The Church of Ireland Bishops’ Appeal is to donate €25,000 to the Al Ahri Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Although the Bishops’ Appeal Advisory Committee last met in November, it has responded to a plea by the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, the Rt Rev Suheil S Dawani, for help to meet the needs of the hospital which is struggling to cope with the casualties of the current conflict in Gaza.

The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem operates the hospital in the heart of Gaza City. It is providing essential frontline medical and emergency humanitarian services to those coming or being brought directly to it. Additionally, it is receiving patients transferred by UNRWA from the Government Hospital Al Shiffa for emergency inpatient and surgical treatment of the wounded and injured.

As a non-partisan well established hospital, it is receiving patients from all directions. The number of casualties arriving at the hospital in the present tragic situation is straining its resources and ability to cope almost beyond breaking point.

The Bishops’ Appeal Advisory Committee meets six times a year to decide on funding applications received. At the most recent meeting on November 17 a number of projects were approved for funding. These were as follows:

Salesian Sisters of St John Bosco – €17,200. The Salesian Sisters run “City of Hope” for girls and boys at risk in Lusaka, Zambia.

VSO – €12,000. VSO Mozambique integrates support for people living with HIV and AIDS with Secure Rural Livelihoods programme.

Habitat for Humanity – £14,590. Habitat for Humanity in Mozambique has a project to provide safe, legally protected shelter for 3,600 families.

KMF Productions – €5,000. “What in the World” is an RTE TV series produced by KMF Productions to give people in Ireland awareness and understanding of global development challenges.

Asra Hawariat School – £10,000. The Asra Hawariat School in Ethiopia provides free education, a kindergarten, a child and family aid programme and various types of training in life-supporting skills. (Additional €1,520 to help school reopen its mother and child feeding centre).

Fields of Life – £30,000. Towards the cost of construction of a school in Burundi.

Plan Ireland – €15,828. To expand Plan Togo’s Girl Friendly School’s project.

USPG – £10,560. To provide better health care to 35,000 of Bangladesh’s poorest people through the Church of Bangladesh.

Christian Aid – €31,700 for a YWCA project to contribute to the enhancement of women’s and children’s livelihoods in two refugee camps in the West Bank; €31,620 to Silveira House in Zimbabwe; €500 for opposition to female circumcision in Sierra Leone; €192 relief for flood victims in India

Friends of Neyyoor Hospital – £10,000 to support the ongoing work of Neyyoor Hospital in South India

Dr Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong, West Bengal – €26,737

Clogher Diocesan Project – €5,921 and £34, 991 to support a project with Kaduna Diocese in Nigeria.

Meath and Kildare Diocesan Projects – €7,589 to support projects in Ubombo, South Africa and Malawi.

Donations for Specific Purposes – €10,035 for flood relief in Myanmar/Burma through Crosslinks; €4,245 for Sudan/Darfur through CMSI to Refuge Egypt.

Full details of all projects to be funded by the Bishops Appeal following the November 08 meeting can be downloaded here.